ked and blinded, and tossted and torn.

I hearn someone say, "Black Prince is loose, the biggest lion of all!"
And sure enough, wild and crazy with the fiery heat and noise, the
great beast rushed up and down, the crowd givin' him the Right of Way.
And at last he clim' up onto a battlement and looked down on the mad
seen below, the shoutin' yellin' mob bore me onwards, so I stood only
a stun's throw from the spot.

Never agin will there be such a seen presented to the eye of man, as
that kingly form, standin' up above the crowd aginst the background of
lurid flame.

But who wuz that standin' directly beneath, in the very middle of
danger? My heart bounded so it most broke through my bodist waist.

Did I not know that small boneded figger? That bald head lit up by the
glare of flames? It wuz! it wuz Josiah! My pardner-huntin' wuz ended,
but wuz it to be death at the gole? That agonizin' thought made me by
the side of myself, and entirely onbeknown to me I rushed forwards and
cried to the lordly beast above, jest ready to spring:

"Don't harm Josiah! Devour me instead!"

[Illustration: "_I rushed forwards and cried to the lordly beast above,
jest ready to spring: 'Don't harm Josiah! Devour me
instead._'" (_See page 303_)]

I knowed I would make a better meal for it; Josiah is lean and boney.
But I won't try to make myself out better than I am; I didn't think of
the lion's digestion, and how Josiah would set on his stomach. My only
thought wuz to save my pardner. And with a herculaneum effort I
reached his side, and snatched him away jest as a shot rung out and
the noble beast fell, his great, shaggy head restin' on the
balustrade, lookin' down on the crowd below as if in questionin' agony
and contempt, as though his last thoughts wuz:

"Did you tear me away from my own free, beautiful, tropical forest for
such a fate as this? Where is man's boasted wisdom and power? I could
have cared for myself, lived and died in happiness and safety, but
civilized man has ruined and destroyed the wild beast."

* * * * *

The rest of that seen is like a dream to me. I guess when the heavy
dread and fear I had carried so long, wuz lifted from my brain, it
made me light-headed. 'Tennyrate, it don't seem as if I come fully to
myself, till Josiah and I wuz takin' leave at Bildad's with tickets
for Jonesville in our pockets.

The agony I had went through there, and my joy in his recovery